No more paddlin'
The House Committee on Children Family and Youth voted 6-4 in favor of a bill that would ban corporal punishment in schools across the state. (No, there's no paddling allowed in Guilford County schools, but that's a system decision.)
Rep. Laura Wiley, a High Point Republican, might just have been the swing vote on the bill. As she herself noted, one might have expected a good conservative from a right-ward tilting district to vote against the ban. Had she done so, the vote would have been 5-5 and the bill would have languished in committee.
But Wiley is a former school teacher who said the thought of hitting a child "turned her stomach."
Click here to listen to her give her reasons for voting for the ban after the meeting ended.
There was a pretty robust debate on the measure, with several groups who lobby down here all the time lining up for and against it.
Those in favor of the repeal included:
- The North Carolina Association of Educators. President Eddie Davis said that new teachers should be put in a position of winding up somewhere that uses corporal punishment when they themselves oppose the practice.
- The North Carolina Parent Teacher Association.
Those who want to keep corporal punishment legal:
- The North Carolina School Boards Association. Association lobbyist Leanne Winner said, "We believe the current statute provide the necessary protections and provides for local decision making." She also added that her group had reports of schools that use corporal punishment and have great success keeping discipline.
- The North Carolina Family Policy Council. Lobbyist John Rustin said that corporal punishment can be administered in a "caring and controlled" way and that schools shouldn't bee deprived of a discipline keeping tool.
The bill's next stop is the House Education Committee and then the House floor.
